Las Vegas loses truck race finale to Penske

Thursday, Oct. 22, 1998 | 10:22 a.m.

Less than two weeks after losing its Indy Racing League season finale to Texas, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway is about to lose its NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season-ending date as well.

NASCAR will announce its 1999 NCTS schedule Friday night in Phoenix and the California Speedway is expected to replace LVMS as the last stop on the truck schedule, sources told the Sun.

The 1.5 mile LVMS has hosted both the IRL and NCTS season finales for each of the past three three years, running the races as stand-alone events.

It is believed the change in the truck schedule will allow LVMS to run the NASCAR truck race on the same weekend -- Sept. 24-26 -- as the IRL Las Vegas 500K next year.

By combining the truck and IRL events, attendance for both races at LVMS should increase. The trucks drew estimated crowds of 30,000 each of the past two years.

Since attracting 67,000 fans to the inaugural Las Vegas 500K in September 1996, the IRL race has failed to draw comparable crowds. The 1997 race saw an estimated 25,000 fans turn out on a cold October night. This year's race was moved from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon and attendance improved to an estimated 35,000.

LVMS chairman Richie Clyne said that despite lagging attendance for the upstart open-wheel series, he plans to stick with the IRL.

"Like everything else, (the IRL) has got its growing pains but we're (standing by) them," Clyne said. "If you look at Texas, they have always drawn well because they have a great nucleus to draw from.

"Here, we have a lot of entertainment alternatives ... and that has always been a problem trying to promote anything in Las Vegas."

Earlier this month, the IRL announced it was moving its season finale from Las Vegas to Texas Motor Speedway, which averaged 90,000 fans for its two open-wheel races this year.

Season-ending dates are coveted by track owners, because they usually decide the series championship. As a result, they generate more fan and media interest.

"It's no big deal to me," Clyne said last week about losing the IRL finale. "I'm the one who asked the IRL to move my date and they were obliging; they were very nice to work with."

Clyne said the details regarding LVMS' Craftsman Truck race would be finalized today during a conference call with NASCAR officials.

A NASCAR spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the schedule change, but indicated the series would be running more races next season in conjunction with other high-profile series.

"We were excited about running the combo race (in June) with the IRL this year," Owen Kearns, media coordinator for the NCTS, said. "We're going to be running additional combo races with the IRL next year (and) one non-NASCAR series that we have never run with before."

A source with Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) said that the truck series will run the same weekend as CART's season opener in Homestead, Fla., and the CART season finale at the California Speedway in Fontana. The two series have never run at the same venue on the same weekend.